D&D 5E Sidekick Classes as PCs, Cultural Paragons?

[doctorbadwolf]

So, I’ll dig into my thoughts more deeply later, but I want to know what others think about the following idea;

Making characters with Sidekick classes, and then adding stuff like feats for races, classic abilities that these days life as class features, etc, at tier levels, could allow a character to feel like their leveling up in their culture’s iconic traditions, becoming a cultural paragon.

The idea relies on the premise that the sidekick classes are a bit less powerful and thus leave room for additional benefits.

What do you think? Is there room to do something interesting here?

The Wood Elf Warrior, for instance, would get Two Weapon Fighting and Archery, eventually, and some ranger stuff related to wilderness and animals, and the Wood Elf Magic feat. The Mountain Dwarf Warrior would get Defensive and Great Weapon Figting, Toughness, maybe some Barbarian stuff, and maybe some artificer infusions?

Edit: got my wires crossed a little, didn’t mean to imply it would be a racial paragon. The Wood People would get elf stuff, and probably forest gnome and Firbolg stuff, and you would just choose whatever cosmetic lineage you want. The idea being that you’re a Protector of The Wood.

 

[Kodiak3D]

I've liked the idea of lower-powered classes ever since the NPC classes appeared in 3.0. I always thought it would be interesting to start a game where the first level (or two) a character had was an NPC or Sidekick class to represent their early beginnings.

 

[IndigoTraveler]

I like more the idea of the PCs starting out as any of the three Sidekick classes only, and then at some point or mid point of the story/campaign, they can Class Promote up to any of the PHB and a Subclass.

So the Wood Elf Spellcaster could become a Wizard/Sorcerer/ or Druid. The Dwarf Warrior could class promote to a Fighter Battle master or Ancestral Guardian Barbarian. Etc, etc, etc.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I've liked the idea of lower-powered classes ever since the NPC classes appeared in 3.0. I always thought it would be interesting to start a game where the first level (or two) a character had was an NPC or Sidekick class to represent their early beginnings.

Yeah for sure

I like more the idea of the PCs starting out as any of the three Sidekick classes only, and then at some point or mid point of the story/campaign, they can Class Promote up to any of the PHB and a Subclass.

So the Wood Elf Spellcaster could become a Wizard/Sorcerer/ or Druid. The Dwarf Warrior could class promote to a Fighter Battle master or Ancestral Guardian Barbarian. Etc, etc, etc.

Yeah, sidekicks help with that, and the new “Survivors” from Ravenloft allow a very low powered level 1-3 option for starting as regular folks while still having some skills and stuff.

 

[bedir than]

There's definitely space to add feat options into the Sidekicks dead levels, but that also turns them into more normal classes.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

There's definitely space to add feat options into the Sidekicks dead levels, but that also turns them into more normal classes.

The idea is exactly to use them as easy templates to make something 5e doesn’t have.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I can see some kind of grid-filling to be made with this idea.

Ancestry/Paragon Class	Warrior	Expert	Mage
Human	Adroit Explorer	Bard	Sorcerer
Elf	Peerless Archer	Forest Scout	Bladesinger
Dwarf	Dwarven Defender	Deep Delver	Rune priest
Halfling	Bounder	Burglar	Luck binder
Half-orc	Wrathbearer	Warchanter	Stormbringer
Gnome	Breach Warden	Arcane trickster	Illusionist

Give them the ''racial'' features at level 1, then give them racially thematic features at every sidekick's dead level.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I can see some kind of grid-filling to be made with this idea.

Ancestry/Paragon Class	Warrior	Expert	Mage
Human	Adroit Explorer	Bard	Sorcerer
Elf	Peerless Archer	Forest Scout	Bladesinger
Dwarf	Dwarven Defender	Deep Delver	Rune priest
Halfling	Bounder	Burglar	Luck binder
Half-orc	Wrathbearer	Warchanter	Stormbringer
Gnome	Breach Warden	Arcane trickster	Illusionist

Give them the ''racial'' features at level 1, then give them racially thematic features at every sidekick's dead level.

Hell yeah! Really let people lean in to being a Wood Elf or whatever if they want.

I will say that I’d also allow you to play a Forest Gnome who gets wood elf stuff as they level, or a Mountain Dwarf and a Goliath would have access to the same stuff, and you could use it to really lean into being raised in a culture founded by a different people from those who birthed you, like the human who is basically a tall dwarf, or my first 3.5 character who was a Half-elf Cleric of Moradin raised by Dwarves after his elf father tried to have him and his mom killed.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Hell yeah! Really let people lean in to being a Wood Elf or whatever if they want.

I will say that I’d also allow you to play a Forest Gnome who gets wood elf stuff as they level, or a Mountain Dwarf and a Goliath would have access to the same stuff, and you could use it to really lean into being raised in a culture founded by a different people from those who birthed you, like the human who is basically a tall dwarf, or my first 3.5 character who was a Half-elf Cleric of Moradin raised by Dwarves after his elf father tried to have him and his mom killed.

You could go with ''Cultures & Ancestries'' like the new races from WotC, instead of hardcoded races.

Human -> Free Folk (generic enough)
Dwarf -> Stone born
Elf -> Fae kin
Halfling -> Hill folk

etc

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You could go with ''Cultures & Ancestries'' like the new races from WotC, instead of hardcoded races.

Human -> Free Folk (generic enough)
Dwarf -> Stone born
Elf -> Fae kin
Halfling -> Hill folk

etc

Hell yeah. Okay, so each culture would have a list of races that inform the design space of the culture and how it adds to a sidekick class. Over levels you can gain stuff from any of the races associated with that culture, so that you just exemplify being Stoneborn or Forestfolk or Wanderer, etc. The dragonmark subraces from Eberron might be useful to mine features from, as well.

Stoneborn: Dwarves, Goliaths, Earth Genasi, Rock Gnomes, Mark of Warding

Forestborn: Wood Elves, Forest Gnomes, Firbolgs, Mark of Handling

Faefolk: High Elves, Satyrs, Fairies, can take one feature from Forestborn,

Seafarers: Minotaur (original UA version), Tortles, Tritons, Sea Elves, Mark of Storm

Wanderers: Halflings, Tabaxi, Mark of Passage,

Nightfolk: Shadar-kai, dhampyr, hexbloods, Mark of Shadow

Towerborn: High Elves, Vedalkin, Mark of Scribing,


And so on. Basically create a list of traits from those, put an asterisk on the really powerful traits, and limit how many asterisk traits one character can pick up.

What do you think?